The Washington Post doesn't like or respect Democrats

The recent imbroglio about the story of totally unsupported rumors that Obama is a secret Muslim was the a recent attack piece written by By National Desk political reporter Perry Bacon Jr.and edited and placed by editor Bill Hamilton. Hamilton has defended the article with the lame excuse

I thought the facts that 1. these falsehoods persist and 2. Obama make mentions of his time living in a Muslim country on the campaign trail as part of his foreign policy were both worth remarking. I think the story makes clear, including in the candidate's own words, he is a Christian.

The so-called rumor has been totally discredited. The story is not one about a rumor. It is a story about lies, nothing else. But at no point in the story is this fact revealed.

The Washington Post saw fit to report the lies as "rumor" with no indication that there was no shred of truth to it. There was no mention that independent sources had researched the rumor and found them to be mere lies. Then, beyond the inadequate story, the editor used newspaper slight-of-hand to make the lies seem even more true. Hamilton then placed the misleading story on the front page of the newspaper. Such placement of the story, and carrying the story with no reference to independent reporting that established the rumors as lies, made it appear that the Washington Post considered the rumors to be true.

After defending the story to the best of her ability, Deborah Howell (Washington Post Ombudsman) finally admitted that the Washington Post had badly botched the story. That is acknowledgement that the story was a Washington Post hit political piece, one that proves the truth of the old saying "a lie has gone around the world before the truth has put its shoes on."

OK. WaPo error. No conspiracy, right?

What about the story by the Washington Post's Robin Ghivan from last July in which she wrote the very unflattering description of Hillary Clinton's "cleavage on display."

She was talking on the Senate floor about the burdensome cost of higher education. She was wearing a rose-colored blazer over a black top. The neckline sat low on her chest and had a subtle V-shape. The cleavage registered after only a quick glance. No scrunch-faced scrutiny was necessary. There wasn't an unseemly amount of cleavage showing, but there it was. Undeniable.

The picture that accompanied the article showed an outfit that was in no way remarkable for a woman Senator, yet Ghivan's article seemed to imply that she was wearing the latest Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton Frederick's of Hollywood outfit. Ms. Ghivan has not written any similar articles on the clothing choices of any of the other Senators or candidates for the Presidential nomination. Still, her article was not the over hit piece that the attack on Obama was.

Unfortunately, Ms. Ghivan seems to be trying to show how effectively she can trash Hillary by analyzing her clothes. Is Ms. Ghivan trying to take on Maureen Dowd's signature irrelevancies-as-significance style? Because she has done it again.

Today Ms. Ghivan tries to parse the political significance of Hillary's pants suits.

The pantsuit is Clinton's uniform. Hers is a mix-and-match world, a grown-up land of Garanimals: black pants with gray jacket, tan jacket with black pants, tan jacket with tan pants. There are a host of reasons to explain Clinton's attachment to pantsuits. They are comfortable. They can be flattering, although not when the jacket hem aligns with the widest part of the hips (hypothetically speaking, of course). Does she even have hips? [Snip]

Women have come a long way from the time when wearing a pair of pants was considered "borrowing from the boys." So it would be highly regressive to suggest that the candidate is using trousers to heighten the perception that she can be as tough as a man. And yet . . .

This is a campaign in which gender stereotypes are being challenged even as the old assumptions are proving stubborn and resilient. Voters are being asked to envision something this country has never had: a female commander in chief. And the culture is gently roiling as audiences try to color in the outline of an XX president.

Is even considering the senator's clothes a kind of chauvinistic assault? Or is it merely the intellect trying to wrangle some sort of order out of the imagination? Oh, the tumult!

I don't really think that it is likely that the top editors of the Washington Post have put out a directive to subtly attack the Democratic candidates they way they did both Gore and Kerry - though the top editors may have chosen editors and made reporter assignments to make such attacks likely.

No, I am going to use the approach that Ms. Ghivan uses. I am going to suggest that you can recognize a subtle style that the Washington Post has of covering Democrats negatively while ignoring the major and very obvious flaws in the Republican candidates for the nomination for President.

Keep watching. You will see that the Washington Post in general does not want the Washington D.C. scene dominated by Democrats. This may not be overt bias, but it is certainly born out by their style of writing stories and placing them in the newspaper. They have gotten comfortable with reporting whatever the Republicans tell them without checking it (stenography, not reporting), and reserving most negative coverages for Democrats.

Their style shows that Washington Post simply does not want to have to adapt to a new crop of powerful strangers, so we can expect more hit pieces on the Democratic candidates for the Presidency while Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee, etc. are permitted to skate.